Vapour barrier: Vapour check, External insulation, Resistance to the passage of sound.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Vapour check.
The moisture vapour pressure from warm moist air inside insulated buildings may find its way through internal linings and condense to water on cold outer faces. Where the condensation moisture is absorbed by the insulation it will reduce the efficiency of the insulation and where condensation saturates battens, they may rot.
With insulation that is permeable to moisture vapour, a vapour check should be fixed on the room side of insulation. A vapour barrier is one that completely stops the movement of vapour through it and a vapour check is one that substantially stops vapour. As it is difficult to make a complete seal across the whole surface of a wall including all overlaps of the barrier and at angles, it is in effect impossible to form a barrier and the term vapour check should more properly be used. Sheets of polythene with edges overlapped are commonly used as a vapour check, providing the edges of panels or boards of these materials can be tightly butted together. 

External insultation.
Insulating materials by themselves do not provide a satisfactory external finish to walls against rain penetration or for appearance sake and have to be covered with a finish of cement rendering, paint or a cladding material such as tile, slate or weatherboarding. For rendered finishes, one of the inorganic insulants, rockwool or cellular glass in the form of rigid boards, is most suited. For cladding, one of the organic insulants such as XPS, PIR or PUR is used because their low U values necessitate least thickness of board.

As a base for applied rendering the insulation boards or slabs are first bedded and fixed in line on dabs of either gap filling organic adhesive or dabs of polymer emulsion mortar and secured with corrosion resistant fixings to the wall. As a key for the render coats, either the insulation boards have a keyed surface or expanded metal lath or glass fibre mesh is applied to the face of the insulation. The weather protective render is applied in two coats by traditional wet render application, by rough casting or by spray application and finished smooth, coarse or textured. Coarse, spatter dash or textured finishes are preferred as they disguise hair cracks that are due to drying shrinkage of the rendering.

Because the rendering is applied over a layer of insulation it will be subject to greater temperature fluctuations than it would be if applied directly to a wall, and so is more liable to crack. To minimise cracking due to temperature change and moisture movements, the rendering should be reinforced with a mesh securely fixed to the wall, and movement joints should be formed at not more than 6 m intervals. The use of a light coloured finish and rendering incorporating a polymer emulsion will reduce cracking.

As the overall thickness of the external insulation and rendering is too great to be returned into the reveals of existing openings it is usual to return the rendering by itself, or fix some non-ferrous or plastic trim to mask the edge of the insulation and rendering. The reveals of openings will act as thermal bridges to make the inside face of the wall around openings colder than the rest of the wall. Figure 106 is an illustration of insulated rendering applied externally.

Tile and slate hanging, timber weatherboarding and profiled sheets can be fixed over a layer of insulating material behind the battens or sheeting rails to which these cladding materials are fixed.

Slabs of compressed rockwool are cut and shaped with bevel edges to simulate the appearance of masonry blocks. The blocks are secured to the external face of the wall with stainless steel brackets, fixed to the wall to support and restrain the blocks that are arranged with either horizontal, bonded joints or vertical and horizontal continuous joints. An exterior quality paint is then applied to the impregnated surface of the blocks. At openings, non-ferrous or plastic trim is fixed around outer reveals.

Details of insulating materials are given in Table 7. 

Fig. 106 External insulation.

Resistance to the passage of sound.
The requirement of Part E of Schedule 1 to the Building Regulations is that walls which separate a dwelling from another building or from another dwelling shall have reasonable resistance to airborne sound.

Where solid walls of brick or block are used to separate dwellings the reduction of airborne sound between dwellings depends mainly on the weight of the wall and its thickness. A cavity wall with two leaves of brick or block does not afford the same sound reduction as a solid wall of the same equivalent thickness because the stiffness of the two separate leaves is less than that of the solid wail and in consequence is more readily set into vibration.

The joints between bricks or blocks should be solidly filled with mortar and joints between the top of a wall and ceilings should be filled against airborne sound transmission. 

Table 7 Externa insulating materials.

In Approved Document E, giving practical guidance to meeting the requirements of the Building Regulations in relation to walls between dwellings, is a table giving the minimum weight of walls to provide adequate airborne sound reduction. For example, a solid brick wall 215 mm thick, plastered both sides, should weigh at least 300 kg/rn2 including plaster, and a similar cavity wall 255 mm thick, plastered both sides, should weigh at least 415 kg/rn2 including plaster, and a cavity block wall 250 mm thick, plastered both sides, should weigh at least 425 kg/rn2, including plaster.

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